


There Will Be Light

by hazel_3017



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Anxiety Disorder, F/M, Friendship, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Panic Attacks, Purging, Repeated Induced Vomiting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-20
Updated: 2016-09-20
Packaged: 2018-08-16 07:58:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8094295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hazel_3017/pseuds/hazel_3017
Summary: Marc-André has good days and bad days. The bad days are...bad.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. 
> 
> Please note that this story deals pretty heavily with mental health issues, and pay close attention to the tags in case of triggers! The induced vomiting happens several times via 'purging' as a symptom of an anxiety disorder.
> 
> Written for the player of the month prompt for the September 2016 Pens Monthly.
> 
> Many thanks to theladyscribe for the beta.

Marc-André does not remember how old he was the first time he realised he’s not okay. He thinks it probably started when he was still in his teens, when hockey went from being an easy fun thing to the difficult kind. The kind where he’s being ranked among other goalies, where exposure matters, where everyone is fighting for the precious few spots on the national teams. It’s the kind where dipping below the average save percentage just isn’t good enough. Not if he wants to be the starting goalie for his team—not if he wants to play for his country.

He _does_ remember the first time he throws up, sick with disappointment and self-loathing; he’s been playing a stretch of bad games and is demoted for his troubles.

Marc-André feels it, the stress and the worry, solidifying like lead in his bones, weighing him down like an anchor. He feels as if he’s trudging through mud, drowning in a pool of his own tears and the sweat of his hard work. He’s put everything into his hockey, worked so hard and given it his very best.  

It still hasn’t been enough. 

(Sometime it feels as though it never is.) 

His failures make him nauseous just to think about, and he can feel it, gurgling low in his throat until he can’t hold it in. He throws up, and after, he feels better for it. Purged. As if he’s lighter. He’s breathing easier, his lungs expanding with each inhale. A teammate ask if he’s okay, and Marc-André nods. He smiles and means it, his laugh genuine, and plays his best game in close to two weeks. 

Later, at home in his room with nothing but his thoughts for company, Marc-André feels a rush of panic so visceral and overwhelming he leans over and throws up again, right there on his bedroom floor. His mind is stuck on a loop of his past failures and the fear of repeating them, soon. He can’t handle another demotion, can’t handle disappointing his teammates, his coach, himself. 

He throws up again and again, until there is nothing but acid burning through his oesophagus. 

When there is finally nothing left, his stomach feels startlingly empty, but Marc-André is surprised to realise he feels better. He is suddenly lighter again; the heavy thoughts are a little easier to tackle without the feeling of solid lead weighing him down.

It only lasts a week before Marc-André is back in his room, struggling to breathe through the despair of another bad game and gasping for air amidst thoughts of his failure. He doesn’t throw up this time. There’d be nothing to throw up anyway; he hasn’t eaten since the loss the previous day. He still feels the nausea though, clawing at his chest, climbing up his throat. 

He isn’t proud of what he does next, but he knows he’ll feel better if he can just get it all out; Marc-André sticks two fingers down his throat and gags around them until he vomits up bile and the lead in his bones. 

It’s the first time he physically purges his anxiety. It is not the last. 

Marc-André is careful. He knows what’s he doing isn’t healthy, knows he can only do it so often unless he wants to be caught.  

He knows he shouldn’t be doing it at all. 

But the purging is the only thing that keeps him going when it all gets too much, makes him get back up on his feet whenever he’s been knocked down. He makes it through juniors, through the draft, to Wilkes-Barre and he is _fine_. He is.  

(He’s not.) 

When Marc-André first began purging, he justified it by telling himself that he could stop at anytime. It was just temporary, to make himself feel a little better, to take off the edge. It’s about control.  

He thinks he always knew that was a lie, but he never cared. Not when it was working, not when it was _helping_ instead of getting in the way of his hockey.  

In the end, it’s Vero who makes him quit. It’s Vero who discovers the purging, who is worried and then scared when he refuses to give it up. 

It’s Vero who says, “I’ll tell your coach,” defiant and determined. Resolute even through her tears. 

_I’ll tell your coach_ , she said, and Marc-André believes her. 

Vero has never interfered with his hockey before. She’s always been his biggest fan, his stoutest supporter; that she’s willing to risk his career is as big a warning sign as Marc-André is going to get.  

This, more than anything, is what makes him finally accept that the purging is out of his control.  

(It always was.) 

When he quietly and discreetly looks up a psychiatrist in the off-season, Vero is there with him, holding his hand at his first appointment, when he’s diagnosed with a panic disorder, and the hard work that follows every day, learning to live with his anxiety in as healthy a way as possible. 

Through it all, she’s there to hold his hand. 

He doesn’t stop purging immediately, and sometimes he has setbacks, even years later, but he does get better. He thinks to himself, _I’m okay_ , and it doesn’t feel like a lie anymore. He’s even gotten to the point where he can recognise the days he’s not okay and admit as much.  

Years of therapy have helped him understand that it’s okay to be not okay sometimes, but he still goes quiet on those days. He retreats into himself, feels that too-familiar feeling of lead in his bones. Those are the days he wants nothing more than to purge it away, but he resists more often than not—and when he doesn’t, Vero holds him through it, stroking his hair and whispering how much she loves him, that they have two beautiful little girls who love him. She says, “When it’s all said and done, it’s what you do as a husband and a father that matters. Those are the things that truly matter, Marc-André.” 

Not his save percentage. Not his goals against. 

Marc-André knows in his heart that she is right, but he can’t always convince his brain of that, and it’s Vero’s voice rather than the actual words, usually, that helps soothe the anxiety away. Just knowing she’s there makes him breathe a little easier. 

Not a lot of people know about his panic disorder. It’s not public knowledge, even if Marc-André sometimes feels guilty about that, knows he has a platform and a voice to speak up for mental illness. He’s told his parents, his team doctors, and a few close friends. Even that feels too many. 

Sid knows. Geno, Kris, and Duper. He tells Muzz because he has to. Because he _likes_ Matty but he’s encroaching on Marc-André’s space, moving in on his territory; he is taking his job from right under him much too quick, and Marc-André can’t look at him without his mouth going dry, lungs constructing with too little oxygen, and the all too-familiar feeling of acid burning, low in his throat. 

It’s never been an issue for any of them. Sid checks in with him regularly, and Kris and Duper had some questions when he first told them, but for the most part it’s not something they talk about. 

That suits Marc-André just fine—he’s been dealing with his anxiety for years, but it’s like a nerve, raw and exposed. Marc-André feels the shame of his mental illness keenly. Even as he knows, logically, that there is nothing to be ashamed about, he can’t help but worry what it says about him that he is like this. Can’t help but worry about what others think of him—those who know, anyway.

It’s not so much that his friends aren’t willing to talk about it, it’s that Marc-André doesn’t let them, usually. 

He’s surprised then, when Geno corners him on the first day the World Cup guys join them for training camp.

“Look good, Flower. Good thing you not play for Team Canada or you be tired already. So old,” Geno tells him. His eyes are crinkling in the corners, and the grin on his face says he’s only teasing.

Marc-André laughs. “Fuck you, G,” he says cheerfully. 

Sid walks past them, looking bleary-eyed as he half-carries, half-lugs his gear along. His hair is free of product, and therefore standing in every which direction. He looks good, healthy, better than the constant look of worry he’d worn on his face when Duper had been playing last year.

Geno reaches out a hand to reel him in, nuzzling his cheek and pressing a smacking kiss to his temple before he lets him go. Sid scrunches up his nose, but Marc-André can see the smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

“Asshole,” Sid mumbles, and Geno says, knowingly, “You love.”

“You’re both assholes,” Marc André says, smart enough to wait until Sidney is too far away to hear.

Geno hums. He’s staring after Sid distractedly, with that lovesick look he gets. Even now, half a decade into their relationship.  

Marc-André feels settled by the familiar display. He associates Sid and Geno so strongly with hockey and comfort, it’s one of Marc-André’s focal points when he gets a panic attack. 

“Sorry about the World Cup,” he offers when Geno deigns to look at him again. 

Geno shrugs. “Next time,” he says. It’s what he says every time his country falls short, whenever the voices of his critics get too loud. _Next time, I’m do better_. There’s a tightness around his eyes, and Marc-André knows better than to comment on it. “Was Sid’s time this year.”  

“It always is, eh?” Marc-André says, longsufferingly, because Sid is an overachiever no matter what he does. He’s a terrible loser. 

Geno grins at that. “Not here to talk about Sid or World Cup. Here to talk about you.” 

“Me?” 

“Want to check up on you, see how you do. I know this spring hard for you and we didn’t talk so much this summer.” Geno clamps a friendly hand down on his shoulder, squeezing gently. “I’m want to see how you do, check to see you okay,” he repeats, and lifts his hand to tap his index and forefinger against Marc-André’s head deliberately.

Marc-André blinks at him stupidly for a second, so taken aback he can’t quite find his words. He feels a rush of panic, the feeling of lead heavy in his belly, and forcibly draws in a deep breath. _I’m okay_ , he tells himself. Geno didn’t mean it accusingly, he didn’t gesture to Marc-André’s head to be cruel. Geno is his friend. He’s not checking up on Marc-André because he’s worried his panic disorder will be an impediment to the team, but because he cares about him. That’s okay. There’s nothing wrong with that—there is nothing wrong with Marc-André. 

Geno is being a good friend, that’s all; he knows Marc-André has been struggling with his situation with Matty.

Geno is looking at him worriedly, but he waits patiently for Marc-André to collect himself.

He knows Geno didn’t intend to pry, but Marc-André still doesn’t like talking about this part of himself, not with people who aren’t his wife or therapist. Geno looks nothing but earnest, though. He’s not pushing for answers, and Marc-André knows that if he deflects, says something benign about how he’s fine, Geno will respect that and move on.

But.

Geno is asking, unprompted, just because. 

And because he genuinely cares.

Marc-André can’t help but appreciate that. He says, “There are good days and bad days. Mostly good now. The bad days are—” He breaks off, shrugging his shoulders helplessly as he remember the days he still purges. “They’re bad.” Marc-André draws a hand through his hair, tugging a little at the fine hairs of his nape. “I work at it, every day,” he says. 

Geno nods. He smiles at him, and before Marc-André realises what is happening, he’s being drawn into Geno’s arms and wrapped into a warm embrace. He sighs, sagging against Geno for a moment as he breathes in his cologne, the one that actually smells good because it’s the only one Sid can tolerate on a regular basis.

“Is good. _You_ good,” Geno says nonsensically. 

Marc-André mumbles a thank you into his neck. He feels safe within the confines of Geno’s hug, as if his disruptive thoughts can’t reach him there, if only for a moment.

“You feel bad,” Geno tells him, “You tell me, and I’m help, okay? All of us, in any way we can.”

Marc-André nods, thinking he probably won’t, but thankful for the offer all the same. Thankful just knowing that he’s got people who cares.

“What’s this?”

Marc-André and Geno look up to see Sidney staring at them quizzically, looking marginally more awake than before. 

Geno grins at him, lifts an arm out in offer, and drags Sid into a three-way hug once he’s in reach. “Hug just because, Sid,” he says cheekily, tongue poking out. 

“Okay,” Sid says agreeably, and lets himself be hugged by them both, more than used to rolling with the punches.

Marc-André laughs. He feels good, nestled in between Sid and Geno. 

Today is a good day, he thinks. _Today I am okay._

**Author's Note:**

> As always, I can be found on [Tumblr.](http://hazel3017.tumblr.com)


End file.
